Аннотация
Introduction. In the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, the educational movement of Jadidism spread across the Kazakh steppes. The Jadids were modernists, progressives, it was a movement for the renewal and reformation of society. In the Kazakh steppe, Jadidism emerged as a significant phenomenon that shaped national culture, ideology, and the popular enlightenment movement. Goals. The study primarily aims to analyze narratives on the development of Kazakh society in the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries containing attempts of Jadids to modernize the sociocultural, educational and political life of Kazakhstan. Materials and methods. The sources for this study include documents of the Chancellery of the Steppe Governor-General and Inspectors of Public Schools from the Central State Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Additionally, published documentary materials and periodicals have been used as sources. In writing the article, the authors adhered to the principle of historicism. Results. Jadidism was a sociopolitical movement aimed at renewing Islamic culture and society, restructuring the Muslim school system, and implementing reforms that radically altered the content and structure of primary education. The incorporation into different territorial administrative units, on the one hand, slowed the involvement of Kazakhs into the orbit of Jadidist reforms; on the other hand, it opened opportunities for the development of independent actions by Kazakh Jadidist, whose active activities would primarily unfold in the territory of the Steppe Governorate-General. Conclusions. The reform in the field of public education undertaken by the Jadids in a European spirit at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had a most noticeable impact on the sociopolitical and spiritual life of the Kazakh people.